I am leaning towards this being a plan by the Pa'nuri. At one point I would have said the Schuul, but this is too far reaching and affecting species we've never even heard of before. The only possible goal I can see for this is signal to as many long gun owners as possible that they should retaliate in the hopes that one of them starts the final war.

And the only species with the desire and means to accomplish that are the Pa'nuri. If they can't destroy the baryonic life directly they'll get the baryonic life to do it to each other. That was their plan with the gatekeeper core project, and they probably don't have any reason to give up just because that failed.

Also way back we got a reference to this time period being known in later history books as the Baryonic Wars, and we haven't seen much yet that would merit that name.

I am leaning towards this being a plan by the Pa'nuri. At one point I would have said the Schuul, but this is too far reaching and affecting species we've never even heard of before. The only possible goal I can see for this is signal to as many long gun owners as possible that they should retaliate in the hopes that one of them starts the final war.

And the only species with the desire and means to accomplish that are the Pa'nuri. If they can't destroy the baryonic life directly they'll get the baryonic life to do it to each other. That was their plan with the gatekeeper core project, and they probably don't have any reason to give up just because that failed.

Also way back we got a reference to this time period being known in later history books as the Baryonic Wars, and we haven't seen much yet that would merit that name.

I can think of a couple reasons why someone might want to accomplish that. Imagine you are a relatively small, mostly ignored nation trying to compete with galactic superpowers, and you gain control of a single long-gun without anyone suspecting you. If you use it to stir up galactic war without them figuring out it was you, you can effectively get the competition to take itself out and with a bit of luck survive the conflict unscathed. It levels the galactic playing field in your favor.

The pace of destruction suggests that whoever is doing this has only ONE long gun. There's a cooldown time between shots unless you want to blow up your own gun.

The problem I see with the "small power leveling the playing field with a nuke" idea is that one of the larger powers would eventually put together an omnicidal mutually assured destruction plan and implement it. If they are particularly nice they might back everyone up before they wipe all spacefaring groups from the galaxy.